The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Air quality is a concern in many parts of the world. Pollution, dust, allergens, and air-borne pathogens significantly impact the health of millions of people on a daily basis. As a result, many people use air purifiers in an attempt to improve indoor air quality.
Air purifiers typically work by passing air through a filter inside the air purifier device. In conventional systems, the air purifier may take the form of a standalone mobile air purifier for a room or small area, or may take the form of a central system that circulates air to multiple rooms. For example, one typical system is found U.S. Pat. No. 7,041,147 to Huehn et al., which describes an air purifying device with a filter element.
All publications herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
In more advanced systems, the air purifier system may include a variety of sensors, such as pollution sensors to determine the level of pollutants in the air, or air speed sensors to aid in the adjustment of the fan speed in order to attempt a certain level of air cleanliness. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,916,239 to Siddaramanna and Chavala describes an air quality system for purifying a building with a number of sensors to determine the count of people in the building as a way to properly ventilate the building.
Conventional home and office air purifiers have traditionally emphasized local air sensing to determine fan behavior in standalone portable air purifier systems. However, there are many drawbacks of this method including; the inability to determine if the air within the entire room is actually getting cleaned, the inability to compare indoor air quality with outdoors, inability to determine if the local room air is any cleaner as compared to the rest of the home or building, etc.
Additionally, in conventional systems, air filters typically are situated within the structure of an air purifier in such a way that several steps are required to get access to or replace or exchange the air filters. This approach has multiple drawbacks. For example, the act of disassembling the air purifier and removing the dirty air filters may result in the end user being exposed to the pollutants, either directly onto hands or gloves or indirectly by generating small plumes of dust in the air which can be breathed or settled on the skin, thus exposing the person servicing the air filter to these pollutants.
Thus, there is a need for an improved air purification system.